Braga’s mayor Ricardo Rio comes across as a humble Portuguese public servant, but he is a true force for making culture the fourth pillar of sustainable development.
While it’s true that culture can ‘happen’ organically, usually over a long period of time, it’s also the case that ensuring powerful entities – indeed ‘actors’ in the non-theatrical sense – understand its transformative force, takes some serious behind-the-scenes work.
And with the #culture2030goal concentrating attempts to place culture and its myriad subsets at the heart of development planning across the globe, these initiatives are ramping up.
Euronews Culture travelled to Braga to meet one man whose mayoral efforts over more than a decade represents the struggle to show how vital culture is to human society.
Braga may not be the first Portuguese city you can name, but it’s one of most vibrant technology hubs in the country. Its mayor, Ricardo Rio, was the host for the 20th anniversary meeting of the UCCN – the UNESCO Creative Cities Network — in July this year and his work serves as the perfect microcosm to show how such a massive initiative works at a local level.
Rio has been Mayor of Braga since 2013 and involves himself with a large number of associations, not least Braga’s leading cultural events hub Theatro Circo. Constant lobbying for investment in his city has paid off in recent years with Braga being named by the UK’s Financial Times in the Top 10 European Cities of the Future.
The 2024 Braga Declaration
Launched at UCCN ’24, this manifesto underscores local-level commitment to the integration of culture as a standalone goal in the post-2030 sustainable development agenda across six priority areas:
Strengthening individual and collective cultural rights; Addressing the digital transformation in the cultural and creative sector, notably Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing culture for climate action; Tapping into the economic dimensions of culture; Protecting cultural heritage in times of crisis; and Enhancing the synergies between culture and education.
But what’s the key takeaway here?
“I think it’s the political commitment,” Rio tells Euronews Culture. “We all share this idea that culture is crucial for the sustainable development of our territories. And to bring culture as a global goal is to ask the global responsibles at the United Nations – and in the national member states – that they also share these values and that they work with us to put culture at the top of their priorities.”
UNESCO Assistant Secretary General Ernesto Ottone was on hand to support the adoption of the Braga declaration alongside Rio.
“Through the UCCN Braga Manifesto, the Creative Cities around the world came together to recognise culture’s role as a driver and enabler of sustainable development,” he said while addressing the conference in Braga last month.
And Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel also threw his support behind Rio’s effort during the UCCN closing ceremony.
“Braga is a truly creative city. You have to be creative to last 2,000 years,” he quipped before reminding us that in Ancient Greece, politics was organised through cities not states. This should be the T-Shirt slogan for what these local-level initiatives are hoping to achieve. And I’d happily buy one.
History and heritage
Rio admits to having enjoyed Rangel’s comment. “We have tried to invest a lot,” he explains. “Not only in creating very good cultural infrastructure but also the safeguarding of heritage. This is a city with over 2,000 years of history from the Roman Empire to the Baroque period and the presence of the Catholic Church, we have a lot of heritage in our territory and we have been investing heavily in making this available first of all to the local citizens and then obviously to the tourists that we have host.”
The almost entirely pedestrianised city centre is certainly a boon for visitors with its maze of pretty, narrow streets dotted with attractive urban gardens and a roster of impressive churches to rival anywhere. But it’s in City Hall that the business of the day is debated and done.
ADVERTISEMENT“We have been diversifying the cultural policies, creating opportunities for young people to express their talent in different domains of artistic expression,” Rio explains.
At the end of the last century, the city saw a new generation of artists and entrepreneurs transform this provincial capital with a symbiosis of art and technological innovation. Their membership of the UN Creative Cities Network is based on incredible growth and success in the Media Arts arena which now represents 50% of that sector’s employment and is the fastest growing sector in the city’s creative economy. This category encompasses disciplines such as digital art, augmented and virtual reality, gaming, digital photography, film and even robotics.
But does this translate to success across the board in the arts? It’s not that simple. Public servants like Rio have to win over the ‘hearts and minds’ of major decision makers so that they understand the value of culture for society as a whole. And although it would be unfair to label the rate of change as glacial, it is a lengthy and continuous process. Moreover, success in one cultural sub-category does not guarantee programmes and funding for the entire sector.
The artist’s struggle
Rui Pedro Magalhães is a 23-year-old violinist who lives and works in Braga. He says it’s still not possible to make a living there as a musician, and he fears it is the result of a wider public apathy.
ADVERTISEMENT“I’m not seeing any real funding in my area, but I’m not angry with the government, it’s more that people in general don’t seem to value the arts.”
Rui has been playing since the age of eight and has a degree in theatre from Braga’s Conservatory Gulbenkian but earns his money working in a restaurant and co-working space in the city centre.
“Either you’re a prodigy or you just end up teaching and getting the occasional gig,” Rui laments.
When asked about the creative cities initiative and the conference being held just minutes away from his workplace, Rui pleads ignorance. “No-one has mentioned it to me,” he says. He then calls a couple of friends and it’s the same story. These things, clearly, take time to bed in.
ADVERTISEMENTFor people like Rui, results will not be seen all across the arts. ‘Media Arts’ is not directly concerned with music and it’s not one size fits all. Not yet.
Biggest challenge?
Presenting this specific case study to the Mayor, it is clear that the desire is there to be as inclusive as possible going forward.
“I want to focus on participation. You are giving me the example of this young artist and I would like to have a city in which no single person, no single artist will find themselves excluded from the cultural activities of the city.”
“I think that this dimension of belonging to the cultural activity is something that I think it will be my biggest victory,” he adds. And he is certainly no stranger to championing youth. Under his leadership, Braga was the 2016 Ibero-American Youth Capital and Rio was central to the creation of the European Youth Capitals Network. Earlier this year the Council of Europe awarded Braga’s Youth Centre with their ‘Quality Label for Youth Centres’ award thus becoming the 15th youth centre to join the network. Indeed, the slogan for the UCCN ’24 is “bringing youth to the table for the next decade.”
ADVERTISEMENTJordi Pascual is the founding coordinator of the committee on culture for the world organisation of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and one of the leaders of the global campaign www.culture2030goal.net that advocates for the role of cultural factors and actors in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He is a great supporter of Rio’s work.
“I’d say that Mayor of Braga is a person that fully understands the transformative power of culture,” he explains. “I’d also say the mayor cares for cultural actors. He knows they “own” the soul of the city, and that they have to feel safe and loved.”
Sustainability credentials
In 2022, Rio was given the accolade of “World Mayor for Sustainability” by The City Mayors Foundation.
“Since I was elected in 2013, one of my main ideas was that we can’t just choose one priority, rather we need to have a holistic approach in which we balance different challenges, different purposes, and different goals,” Rio says.
ADVERTISEMENT“The UN sustainable development goals are a very useful tool for this because it matches these different dimensions: social inclusion; the competitiveness of our territory; economic development; environmental concerns and a governance model where we engage the citizens and the local institutions to work together to shape a vision for the future and to do concrete things to achieve the goals that we are pursuing.”
55 new cities joined the UCCN in June 2024 making a current total of 350. Nevertheless, Rio is keen to expand even further and bring in more dialogue between different cultural categories.
“We need to create some experiments, create some labs where we cross gastronomy with arts, with film, and literature with music and media arts. These type of interconnections still need to be reinforced,” he states. “We need to bring in more cities.”
